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Lou Hevly ha escrit el 29/05/06 20:32:
<blockquote cite="mid5.1.0.14.2.20060529192806.00a6d6a0@..."
type="cite">At 18:56 29/05/06 +0200, Jonathan Kaye wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Lou Hevly ha escrit el 29/05/06 16:54:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">At 12:34 29/05/06 +0100, Max Wheeler wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">The other verb is "catch"
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Which makes 5:
<br>
<br>
pay paid paid
<br>
catch caught caught
<br>
cost cost cost
<br>
prove proved proven
<br>
quit quit quit
<br>
</blockquote>
Sorry, I missed something there. Why is "pay" irregular?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Because it is spelled irregularly ;-).
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Aside from the spelling it behaves exactly
like "spray", which is regular, yes?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
But "spray" is never included in lists of irregular verbs, whereas
"pay" and "lay" generally are (Quirk and Greenbaum, Swan, Collins
Cobuild, DAC, etc.).
<br>
<br>
Still, I guess it's just a matter of how you look at it: For you, the
irregularity of "pay" and "lay" is a spelling irregularity of two
regular verbs, correct? For me, these are irregular verbs.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
I still don't understand your concept of "irregular". Are you really
saying that the verb "to say" has a regular present tense? If I
understand what you're saying than, yes you believe that to be true. I
couldn't care less what Quirk, Greenbaum, etc. say. I think you need to
distinguish between an irregular verb and an irregular spelling of a
regular verb and a regular spelling of an irregular verb (like "say").
Obviously the other two possibilities exist, e.g. read-read vs.
lead-led. One of these, I have no idea nor interest which, is an
irregular spelling of an irregular verb. spray-sprayed is the final
possibility. You can get into all kinds of absurdities like do potato
and tomato have "regular" plurals. For me, obviously yes. For you, ...
I don't know. It depends if you consider fandango, calypso, etc.
regular or irregular or indeed which dictionary you consult.
Merrium-Webster gives calypsos as the only plural of calypso whereas
the Cambridge Advanced learners gives both: calypsos or calypsoes. If
Quirk, Greenbaum, et al claim that pay is an irregular verb in English
with no note about only wrt spelling then they're just wrong.<br>
Jonathan<br>
<br>
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